Hush Little One
by SolarRose29
Summary: There are other ways to drown, Michael tells him.


Title from Revolt Production Music song of the same name (from their perfectly creepy album Tormented II)

* * *

_drown /droun/ v. die through submersion in and inhalation of water_

There are other things to drown in besides water. Blood, for one. But that's not very creative. Michael tells him this once, face undulating through crystalline light. There's a pressing of the angel against his mind. Although since Michael is already in his mind, Dean's not sure that's the right way to describe it. But that's the closest depiction he can come up with at the moment. So. Michael presses into him, the picture of Zachariah's borrowed suit popping in front of his vision. Then comes the rest of the memory. Not images so much. Michael likes all eyes on himself. But still. The smoothest floor under his boots. The tang of copper and illness. Two brothers and no choice.

Michael likes to think about Mary. I never had a mother, he says. He flicks through Dean's memories of her like a card catalog, scanning the titles for ones that pique his interest. It's mud this time. Viscous and warm. So pure it's still got the worms and centipedes in it. They tickle Dean's throat. Dean wishes he would go back to the memories of John. Like he always does, Michael seems able to decipher the odd choking noises Dean makes.  
"No, no. I've seen all those before. The orders and cryptic messages. The love you can only get by earning it, just to have it stripped away at the first sign of failure. Daddy leaving and not coming back. Blah, blah, blah, sob story. Call Oprah."  
He plucks a memory, nods like he's satisfied. The scent of cinnamon and motes of flour in sunlight.

Sometimes there's actually a mirror. Floor length, showcasing one ballroom or another as Michael adjusts a silk bow tie and stuffs Dean so full of glass he's sure his distended belly will rupture. Sometimes Michael makes one. God made man from dirt, he explains, shifting handfuls of Dean through his fingers. God made man from dirt and dirt is like sand and sand is full of silicon dioxide. Heat it, heat it, heat it with a temperature hotter than the Pit itself. And it all comes together. See Dean, you and Michael really are reflections of one another.

Whenever Dean reaches for Sam, fingers that are actually not fingers but icicles, Michael bats his hand away. Steps on those reaching, reaching icicle fingers. Crushes them into tiny diamonds. Sprinkles them into a crown that he sets on his own head. Tut, tut, hasn't Dean learned his lesson yet? Stop it. Stop. Sam can't help you now.

Jello is not something Dean ever imagined could be turned into a weapon. But apparently Michael thinks it's funny when Dean's chest is full of gelatin. Ribs like a specially shaped mold to hold it all close while it sets. When Michael laughs, it's the screech of electricity through wires and the crack of skyscraper foundations during an earthquake.

Once he finds out Dean's mundane fears, he uses those too. A shaky takeoff turns to wild turbulence turns to depressurized cabin turns to loss of oxygen. Rats and dogs and yeah, even snakes too because those slippery little bastards are creepy as hell.

Michael likes to return to Mary. He never had a mother. A father, an entire multitude of brothers and sisters, and, depending on various definitions and interpretations, a slew of cousins. But mother. That's something that's fascinating. Multifaceted. In Dean's experience, (which is now Michael's because Michael's in his head and in his brain and in his mind and has access to every single part of his heart and soul,) complicated. While Dean's battling the undertow in a pitch black lake, Michael is studying comfort and broken promises of safety, putting tally marks in separate columns on the kitchen window.

Stubborn, because he's John's son. Strong, because he's Sam's brother. Dean uses those. Like they're his right leg and his left leg and he can kick his way out of the deep end, back to the shallows where little kids splash each other in bright orange swim suits. Michael's lounging on a deck chair, woolen overcoat out of place by the poolside, scrawling notes in a recipe book without worrying in the slightest.

Dim the lights. The curtain rises. Michael makes good use of a pair of opera glasses, vintage mother of pearl. In the velvet chair next to him, Dean's restrained with cords around his wrists. He's got a plastic mask tented over his mouth. It looks like the ones that deliver oxygen to hospital patients. This one doesn't deliver oxygen. This one pumps champagne down his esophagus, straight to his lungs.

"I can't wait until the final act." Michael leans toward Dean, gesturing with a program in hand:

**Act I: Creation**

**Act II: The Fall**

**Act III: Destruction**

Unsurprisingly, Michael likes to leave him in the ocean when he has other business to attend to. One moment they're riding down the highway, Dean in the passenger seat so the open window can steal his breath away, and then they're deep enough to see the whales migrating south for warmer waters. Michael blinks and the whales burst into sacks of blubber. The bloody blobs bump Dean's body in various unpleasant places. Then Michael and Dean dive, and then Michael vanishes. Leaves Dean's bones splintering under eight hundred pounds of pressure per square inch. His lungs compress and the nitrogen diffuses into his tissue and he's never been scuba diving before but he knows enough to know that's not a good thing.

Back again, to Mother. Michael rolls his shoulders, extends his neck this way and that. Hums in that satisfied way humans do while scratching a mosquito bite to the point of bloody pain, knowing that the action only worsens the problem. He can't stop himself. But Mary's getting a little worn out, frayed along the edges and dull, the first layer peeled off and crumpled. He's ready for a change. Brings back some old crowd favorites. Ellen's honey-whiskey advice. Missouri's brownie batter tone. Jody and her oddly firm voice that's always at the other end of the phone.

Dean tries again for Sam. Feels it, instinctual, that if he can just reach Sam, things will be okay. He will be okay. He'll breathe air instead of liquid. And he can finally kick this son of a bitch out. There's really only room for one in here. Michael crosses his ankles on the plush white ottoman. Shakes out his newspaper and peers over the top at Dean with amusement in his eyes.  
"Oh. I'm not going anywhere."

Out of boredom, Michael shatters the lock on Dean's box. The giant box in his mind that holds all the crap he stuffs down because it's too terrible to think about and if he does, he'll turn into a drooling mess that can't function on account of all the crushing guilt and the overwhelming terror. But Michael's bored and wants to look so he starts digging through it and Dean shivers in the deluge of rain so thick it's more solid than liquid now. It's like being naked. And not in a 'naked in front of the whole class' dream kind of way. More like, naked in front of one single person that you don't want be naked in front of. Michael rolls his eyes while baring all the private parts of Dean's psyche, communicating that, with the kind of past Dean has, he really should be used to this kind of humiliating exposure by now.

No matter what other people may say or think, Dean's not an idiot. He knows Michael's doing bad things out there. In the real world. There is real danger of real pain for real people. But Dean can stop him. He can. If only he could just break the surface. His heart is knocking dully against his breastbone and there's more dark than light in his vision. He should have passed out by now. Hell, he should be dead by now. But that's not how this works. That's not how Michael works.

A hand on his head keeps him under. Every now and then, Michael will get in the water too for no other reason than to hold him down. There's scintillating patterns of white and blue near the surface. And Dean is so close. But that damned hand in his hair stops him from actually breaching.

It's not clear whether it's a glimpse of the future. Or if it's just another of Michael's tricks. Or maybe it really is the present and he's getting a front row seat. It doesn't matter. These are Dean's friends being slaughtered. This is his family butchered. By his hands. Bobby gets his brains exploded, painted across the bookcases he always loved to read through. Charlie looks like Kevin, same open mouthed burning eyes. Cas is gripped tight and then hurled to perdition, a handprint branded on his shoulder. Jack, sweet, innocent, powerful Jack gets sucked dry. His grace like the finest wine and his power becomes Michael's. There's more. More and more familiar faces all torn and burned and dead. But Michael saves the best for last:

Sam turns, relieved to see him.

Dean's mouth smiles, full of pretty teeth.

Then blood. Fresh and red.

"See? All that time in Hell is paying off," Michael says with Dean's mouth as, together, they shred Sam in the most cruel ways imaginable. The smile never leaves.

Dean knows Sam can feel it. All of it. The separation of marrow from bone, the peeling of nerves from vertebrae. Michael takes it one step further, adding his angelic perspective to Dean's demonic expertise. It's at the atomic level. He can unravel Sam's physical body quite literally. There are certain traits that run in families after all and if Michael has the same idea of torture that Lucifer had, well, that's what's to be expected, isn't it?

Dean screams. Begs and shouts and screams and cries and screams, and screams, and screams.

But Michael cracks Sam's chest open, roll of thunder.

Scalps him and scoops out his geeky brain, volcanic eruption.

Dips a hand down his throat and pulls out his intestines, avalanche.

Dean screams. But Michael is louder. There are other ways to drown, he reminds Dean.

_drown /droun/ v. (of a sound) to overwhelm so as to render another inaudible_


End file.
